Silvering: Meditation on Wolf with Moon
by her2eternity
Summary: Part of the Lover's Quartet. "Black Gesso" A very young Remus Lupin faces the terror that changed his life forever. Through his saviors, he meets a very interesting person indeed, one who will initiate a more subtle change than the wolf. Slash warning


Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I am not Oscar Wilde.

Warning: Slash. If that bothers you, hit the nice "Back" button at the top of the screen.

**Silvering:**  
_Meditation on Wolf with Moon_

He lay as one who lies and dreams  
In a pleasant meadow-land,  
The watchers watched him as he slept,  
And could not understand  
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep  
With a hangman close at hand.  
-Oscar Wilde, from "The Ballad of Reading Gaol"

_One: Black Gesso*_

"He is the sort of child who loves the moon," Helene Lupin said, stroking the soft brown curls from the baby's forehead. She lay upon crisp white sheets in her husband's ancestral home, as comfortable there as she had been in her tiny village of Joie, just north of Marseilles. 

"The moon," said her husband, Alexander, from his place at the side of bed, "Why the moon, _mon amour?"_

Helene laughed, a sweet and tinkling sound, like summer breeze through a chandelier. Alexander's French was _quite_ horrid. "Look at him," she said, lifting the child, "He has been in this world for only sixteen hours, and already he knows the danger of shutting his eyes. If he sleeps, he knows he may miss something beautiful, something vital. And night will cloak his vibrant world so that he may discover it all over again by the light of the moon. He is the sort of child who will understand that the room he knows by daylight is not the same room at night."

"Only sixteen hours and you know this about him already," Alexander said with a smile, "Remarkable, darling."

"I know nothing," Helene demurred, drawing the child close again, "Remus told me himself."

"He told you?" Adoration swelled through Alexander's chest, made him cup the face of his beautiful wife with as gentle a touch as he could muster. She turned her sweet face and kissed his palm. His darling, fey, beloved Helene, who had given him a son.

"Yes, Alexander. My little Remus tells me everything, and just now, just a moment ago, he told me that he loved the moon."

"Has he seen it then?" Alexander asked, amused by her fantasy, knowing full well they had not left the room since the child was born.

"Oh no," Helene whispered, "He feels it, you see. The moon is within him."

---,--`--@

Nine years later, Helene Lupin would remember this conversation, and beg what gods there were to take it back. 

---,--`--@

Marseilles and the neighboring towns were in a state of unrest. There had been a series of animal attacks on some of the cattle in the outlying villages, and a farmer's son had been attacked and died. Though wolves were not entirely unheard of in that area, these attacks were unusually vicious and seemed to coincide with the rise of the full moon. In Joie, one of the few all-wizarding villages in France, there were whispers of lycanthropy.

Helene and Alexander knew little of these attacks. They left England in June, planning to return to their home there in July. Helene missed her mother and siblings, and Remus got along so sweetly with his cousins, that a holiday in Marseilles seemed the only solution. They arrived during a time of cautious celebration, because the full moon had just passed and there had been no word of fresh assaults. 

Helene's family was as precious and fey as she, and the rumor of werewolves about hardly bothered them. "People will talk," said Sophie, Helene's mother, "Let them. We will see in the end, eh Remus?" She ruffled the boy's unruly hair with a floury hand; she preferred to cook the old fashioned way, the way passed down through her ancestors, rather than with wand and words. 

"Werewolves," sniffed Jean-Marc, Helene's younger brother, "They hardly exist anymore. Efforts to wipe them from the face of the earth have been enormously successful." He brushed at the flour Sophie had left in Remus's hair. "Besides, Augustus de Malfoy and his brothers Darius and Henri have come up from Marseilles to take care of the problem. I do not envy the wolf on the night of the full moon."

"The de Malfoys are another pack entirely," Sophie said in a dry voice. She shook her dishtowel at Remus. "Go, _mon petit._ Tell your _cher maman_ that dinner will be ready soon."

Remus knew precisely where to look for his mother; on a day when the sunlight was this lambent and golden she could only be in the courtyard. He slipped into the brilliant, hazy light, and, right as always, there she was, her lower body visible below the canvas she slaved over.

Remus stole up beside her, knowing not to call and startle her. There was nothing he loved more than to watch her at work; the way she nipped at her tongue with her even white teeth at a particularly tricksome point, or the way her wrist moved when she applied broad swathes of rich color. At the moment, she was working a slick and shining blue into the top right corner, the canvas shivering slightly under her onslaught. Helene had always painted heavily, building up layers and textures across the surface of her canvas, inviting touch as well as gaze. Alexander always told her that she could have been famous, and with her rich, lush colors and modern sensibilities, he may very well have been right. However, Helene only painted when she was in Marseilles, and only when the courtyard was filled with textured light like this. "Otherwise," she said, "I am simply not inspired."

This painting was inspired, a shimmering sky of blue and black pierced with silhouetted trees. Dozens of fiery, baleful eyes peered from around the half-seen tree trunks, and a silvery moon shone over all, luminous and soft. Helene hummed softly to herself, Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" - Helene loved anything that appeared to use the name of her home; "Joy to the World" was her favorite Christmas carol. 

Helene lowered her brush and tipped her head to one side. "What do you think, Remus?"

"It's beautiful," he said, coming towards her. So he had not been sly after all; he wondered how long she'd known he was there. "What shall you name it?"

"Meditation on Wolf with Moon," Helena said promptly, "I woke up with the name, and I simply had to make a painting to carry it."

"What is the name of that color?" Remus asked, pointing to the one she'd been working with. He loved the names of her oil paints; rich and exotic with their faint mineral smell.

"Cerulean Blue," Helena said, taking him in her arms and resting her chin on his head as they stared at the painting together, "It is the color of peace, Remus."

"I like Ivory Black the best," Remus said.

"How do you know Ivory Black?" Helene asked with surprise, "I never paint with it."

"I heard you mention it to father once, and I like the name."

"It's not a very vivid color, _mon cher,_ it is-"

"Oh, don't tell me!" Remus begged, "That way I can still search for it, can still pretend it's any color that I like."

"Very well," Helene said with a smile, "Ivory Black, my Remus's special color."

---,--`--@

The search for the elusive Ivory Black should have lasted a lifetime, but Remus found it that night. The moon rose, full and silver and breathtaking, and Remus could watch it slip across the sky from his bedroom window. Usually it was enough to simply enjoy so beautiful a thing, but tonight was different, tonight hummed with expectation and portent. There was a color, half-sensed, nearly hidden, where the glow of the moon merged with the black of the sky, a silvery, shifting, difficult shade. "Ivory Black," Remus whispered, and he had to be out in it, had to bathe in it, dressed and out the window before he knew what he was doing. _There were no attacks last month,_ he told himself as he crossed the dew-damp grass to the rolling field behind his grandmother's house,_ there is nothing for me to be worried about._

The long grass came over his head, surrounding him in a rustling curtain that smelled sweetly of summer. The air was soft against his face and hands, the ground warm and moist beneath his feet. He would walk a few yards into the grass then make a nest and lie there, watch the moon sweep gracefully overhead and enjoy his Ivory Black.

It was not to be.

Remus was pulled from his half-dreaming state by the whisper and rustle of something near him in the tall grass, something that was far bigger and more dangerous than it had any right to be. Remus froze, willed himself to be silent, to stop breathing, icy prickles of fear caressing his neck. A million conflicting plans ran though his head, _walk, stay, play dead, run, scream for help,_ but no matter which of these he chose his fate was still unavoidable. The beast in the grass was a predator, a stalker, slavering jaws and whispering heart singing the song of blood and destruction. The beast lived to rend and to tear, to mangle and destroy, for only then could it assuage it's own suffering.

_Boy._

Bleed.

Thundering heart.

Scent.

Fear.

Good.

The growl the drifted from the darkness of the long grass was primal, shuddering, and Remus felt his blood turn to water. The sound seemed to echo in his ears, making the location of the beast impossible to pinpoint. He spun to look behind him, short, fast, sob-breaths rasping in his lungs. His eyes burned with tears, but he could not cry; he had to be able to see.

The sound came again, insistent and low, flooding the small space Remus inhabited and drowning out all other sounds in the night. It was closer this time, much closer, louder, and whatever the beast was, whatever lurked there in the night, it surely hated him and wished him dead. The growl once again, and hot breath touched the back of Remus's neck, gusts of scalding air that stank of carrion and death.

The world stopped. Remus turned liquidly, the grass swaying high above his head, the field around him locked in silence save for the beating of his heart. In those few seconds he saw every blade of grass limned in Ivory Black light, every diamond-hard glitter of uncaring star, and the unholy smolder of the white moon in the beast's starving eyes.

He screamed and time started up again, screamed and dropped to the ground as the werewolf lunged, missed, whirled to attack again. Remus ran, twisting and ducking through the long grass, stupid with terror. "Help me!" he screamed, "Help me!" never realized that he was running away from his grandmother's house, running towards the open, empty fields with no hope of shelter.

The werewolf snarled, leapt, and brought the thrashing child to the ground, teeth locked into the shoulder of the boy's robes, twisting its head savagely. Remus heard his sleeve rip and rolled away from it, leaving the cloth in the werewolf's fangs as he began to run again.

With a snarl of rage the monster bounded after him, and this time when he pounced he caught the back of the boy's neck, bearing him to the ground with a bone-shattering thud.

Remus had never experienced pain like this, the gradual tightening of canines across the back of his neck, choking him with his own skin as he thrashed futilely. He could feel blood and slaver running down the back of his robes as the beast shook him, felt white-hot agony as flesh tore. He dropped to the ground, gathered his knees under his body and began to crawl, the beast stalking him slowly, as a cats stalks a mouse it has mortally wounded. Shuddering, Remus tried to gain his feet, to force his body to obey his commands, instinct for self-preservation overwhelming the knowledge that he would not survive this.

Rising was a mistake; the werewolf did not like him on two legs and it attacked again, leaping on his exposed arm and savaging it, blood flying from his arm like rain as the beast's ferocity knocked him to his knees. The werewolf snarled as it tried to rip his arm from his body, to destroy him, and Remus realized with horror that he could see the place where the werewolf's teeth had entered his skin, buried to the gum in the soft flesh just below his shoulder. His entire side was bathed in blood, blood slicking the back of his robes, and the stench of it overcame even the primal smell of the beast. _I'm going to die, _Remus thought with wonder. He was beyond screaming now, beyond help, and he let go, stopped fighting, allowed himself hang limply and hoped the werewolf would take out his throat. _Make it fast; please don't let me bleed out while it rips me apart._

_"Stupéfiez!" _The voice ripped through the night, through the haze surrounding Remus's head, and the beast dropped him, fell to the ground beside him with a thud, glaring through glazed eyes, mouth in a silent snarl.

"Fucking _loup-garou."_ Another voice, far less calm the first, and Remus dreamily watched a booted foot connect with the wolf's stomach.

"Who did she attack?" a third voice, almost as crisp and collected as the first, and Remus was turned over by the same foot that had kicked the monster. The man was only a little gentler with him.

_"Merde,"_ Henri de Malfoy said, "It's a child."

"Leave him," his brother Darius said, "Without a healer those wounds are mortal."

"I disagree," Augustus said, "What if he, by some chance, survives? Then we will have another monster on our hands."

Darius took out his wand. "You suggest, then, that I kill him?"

_"Non._ We take him. We observe. He may not be _loup-garou."_

"It's risky, Augustus," said Henri, "You've seen what these things can do."

"And it's ridiculous to think he _won't_ change," Darius said, "Look at those wounds. I tell you, he is contaminated."

"He is the same age as Lucius," Augustus said, "Or very close at least." Darius made a disgusted sound and turned away. "You have no children," Augustus said, "This boy belongs to someone."

"He belongs dead," Darius spat.

"We'll see," Augustus said. He leaned over the child, cupping the heart-shaped face. "Stay with us, child. We bring you to a healer."

"Very humanitarian," Darius sneered, "And if he turns next month?"

Augustus lifted the child as carefully as he could, and Henri maneuvered the battered arm to lie across the boy's chest. "Then," he said, "You may kill him."

@--`--,----

*Black Gesso is a substance used by painters to prep the canvas for oil paints, providing a thick black background to work on, which effects the colors differently than a white gesso.

*Stupéfiez - French for 'Stupefy' of course!

*Loup-Garou - French for 'werewolf.'


End file.
